Beta: Old man of the mountain/Darklord331
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There was a break in the curtain of smoke that surrounded the lake of lava as I pierced through it at supersonic speeds. The city of Orleans by the side of a river soon came into view alongside a drastic reduction in the number of wyverns that once swarmed the city.
It took some time to kill that huge dragon properly.
Once I was within the city boundary, I began wielding Quetzalcoatl's Authority of the Wind through We Are The Winged Serpent. Through that Authority I once more gained knowledge on the position of every single air molecule in Orleans.
All colors drained away as I closed my eyes. The world became mono-color, with volumes of pitch blackness interspaced with white. Those blackness represented places where there weren't any air molecules.
Staring at those volumes of darkness, I searched for a specific one shaped like the Holy Grail I captured in Fuyuki.
I focused on the houses and the ceilings. Hundreds upon hundreds of houses were scanned from top to bottom, from the largest cabinet to the smallest nook; my omnipresent eye peered into it all.
I focused on the houses sitting at the city's edge before moving inward. Incredible amounts of data were recorded as I cataloged millions of different individual objects from spoons to forks to chairs to swords.
Seconds later, I was finally at the main castle palace that stood at the city's center. Though vines were crawling across it, almost engulfing the whole thing like a house that's been abandoned for decades, I couldn't be sure that it was a distraction from where the real Grail was held.
By now, I knew the makeup of every single house in Orleans, the largest city in Medieval France and the seat of power for the French Kingdom. Not a single human resided within any one of those 14910 houses.
All were murdered by these wyverns. Their bodies were probably all consumed by the wyverns if I hazard a guess.
It was a massacre of unprecedented proportions. And yet I don't feel—
Before I could finish that thought, a robust man clad in pitch-black armor and a rustic helmet bearing a single thinly carved slit leaped at me. It was a knight. Wielding two swords that had red veins spreading all across it like tumors.
"AAAAAAAAARRRRRTHURRRR—"
An explosion of blackness appeared right in my field of view. The knight was less than a meter away, so close that if I reached out I could easily touch him.
"..."
*TANG*
I flicked my wrist and sent the berserk knight barreling through dozens of empty houses. Stones cracked. Wooden support beams shattered. Houses collapsed and turned into piles of rubble with towers of opaque dust erupting out like smoke from a wildfire.
A simple, almost mellow, flick of my wrist turned the knight into a cannonball and devastated a whole street. It was as though a finger of God had gone through Orleans with how straight and total the path of destruction was.
He didn't get up.
The swarm of wyverns approached. So numerous they were like extra loud bees with their screeching and the flapping of their wings.
In response, I summoned forth multiple tiny orbs of plasma that blitzed at any wyverns who got too close. Utilizing one of humanity's oldest methods of attack— raming— these orbs of tightly contained plasma bore a hole right through a wyvern's body as they moved, appearing as this thin thread of green light.
The threads surrounded a perimeter around me. Combined, they created an impenetrable web that no wyverns could cross.
Many nonetheless did try, their failure evident by the bodies piled up all around me. Bodies of wyverns with a new tunnel drilled into them lifelessly crashed into the streets and houses nearby.
It was raining wyverns.
I approached the central castle where normally the King must've called home, my feet a meter above the cobblestone road. The number of threads of plasma thinned along with the number of wyverns still in the sky.
The main street that led to the Palace of Orleans was a decorated one. It was covered from end to end in cobblestone and had tall metal poles topped off with unlit torches— a primitive form of streetlight no doubt— at the sides.
At the main castle gate, I spotted four Servants guarding the entrance.
I can almost commend them for their unwavering defense of the castle. They must've seen how I obliterated that dragon and how easily I subdued the black knight, yet even so they still decided to face me head-on.
Faced against impossible odds yet nonetheless never giving up…
I paused for a moment and stared at the blue sky above me. Memories of that crimson sky and that baleful sun returned for a brief moment.
I can respect that perseverance. I truly can. The plasma I summoned previously disappeared.
The first Servant stepped up. He had deathly pale skin and long, silk-like white hair. The atmosphere around him had a refined elegance that was only emphasized further by his royal fashion clothing. The man wielded a spear. Lancer, then.
"To have killed Berserker so easily…"
There was no fear in his eyes as one might when facing against a goddess, only an unnatural madness.
"...
The ground shook. Over three seconds, five hundred thin stakes sprouted from the ground and tried to skewer me. It was a veritable floor of sharp sticks, so numerous and so tightly packed together that they appeared as a solid, deadly surface.
It had no effect. I didn't even bother raising my shield.
Wordlessly, I moved through it. The stakes broke against my skin like someone snapping toothpicks, unable to even scratch it just as how a feather couldn't scratch a steel ingot.
The madness broke and Lancer was visibly shocked at how I brushed off his Noble Phantasm like it didn't exist. I should know.
Noble Phantasms are the crystalization of one's legend. The symbol of their myth. Trump cards one can rely upon to alter the current situation in one's favor by simply invoking their name.
This nullification equals a complete invalidation of Lancer's legend.
At least, that's how I see it.
Lancer doesn't seem to see it the same way. He merely appeared miffed about the lack of any damage.
That miffed look quickly turned into excitement. Grinning, he said, "A Goddess indeed…"
Another Servant came screaming forth. A woman with purple hair and a saintly dress, wielding something that's a mix of a cross and a staff.
She swung it like a pickaxe. The sides of her cross-staff struck fruitlessly against my skin. So weak was her strength that I didn't even budge.
Upon seeing that, she said, "Kill me… please…"
The Servant's plea made me pause in my movement. For the briefest instance, I was taken back to my first World. Back when the sun was still corrupted. Specifically, back to my first mercy kill of that young man held hostage by the sun-corrupted blobs of fused meat.
Complicated feelings bubbled up inside me, quickly boiling over as I once more remembered how my merciful kill condemned him to a worse hell.
"Ah…"
I tried not to think about that. I tried to imagine the wisdom that someone like Merlin could give me regarding how to solve death.
That made me wonder what the hell was I doing right now. Why am I slowly approaching where the Grail was held like some kind of boss in a video game? What purpose was there in this act other than crushing the last hope of whoever started this Singularity? Why do I bother with respecting their will to fight even in the face of hopeless odds when I have more urgent issues at hand?
I shouldn't draw things out.
A solemn look appeared on my face. Multiple orbs of bluish-green plasma materialized into existence all around me.
The woman backed away in surprise. That expression didn't last long when one of those orbs of plasma lengthened into a beam, striking the purple-haired Servant's head and going through it.
From the point of contact with the plasma starting from her head, the woman began to fade into particles of golden light. Just like that young man, right before her entire head was turned into those gold particles, all she had was an expression of peace and acceptance of what was to come.
'it's okay'.
It disturbed me.
I don't like killing. I really do not like killing. Who could love killing after knowing what comes after? That hell of an unchanging Eternity within that false paradise.
Of course, I know that this was a different place entirely. It was a realm detached from the SCPverse. This meant the humans here, those who died, entered an entirely different afterlife—for instance, the Throne of Heroes for those who did great deeds and reincarnation for others.
It was a much more merciful afterlife.
Nonetheless, seeing someone just stop fighting and accepting their imminent death… that's something I couldn't accept— or understand. Perhaps it was my prejudice talking. Perhaps my experience of being in a world where the afterlife is a stagnant eternity colored my view of suicide.
But, I can't accept it. I just can't! You're going to die, why not fight till your last breath? Avoid that realm of staleness at all costs!
"
"
Before the woman had fully faded from existence, I sent out several more beams of ionized gas that plowed right through the heads of the other three remaining Servants, killing them before they could do anything else.
I saw on the face of the noble, almost vampire-like male who wielded a lance, only respect and praise.
I saw on the face of the androgynous Servant who wielded a saber, only peace, just like the purple-haired woman.
I saw on the face of the female, noble-like Servant who wielded a staff, a look of anger, like one who just experienced an immense injustice.
Three more fountains of gold particles were all that remained of those legendary figures of mankind. Seeing their deaths, all the remaining 145 wyverns that flew on the periphery of this one-sided butchery closed in.
Their mouths were wide. Their claws were put forward as they descended like a hawk that was just about to capture a rabbit.
Taking control over Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind, I willed the air around me to move in such a way as to turn into invisible, spinning buzzsaws.
With a single flick of my fingers, those buzzsaws took off. In a single second, they sliced through 50 of the closest wyverns. The remaining panicked at the sudden invisible attack, flapping their wings with great effort to slow down and fly away to assess the situation.
The wyverns are intelligent. Not that it'll give them much of an edge in the face of overwhelming power.
Continuing to hover half a meter above the ground, I strode into the palace unmolested.
Entering through the opened main door, I ignored all the luxuries affordable only to a medieval monarch. From fine artworks that filled the walls to expensive pieces of furniture that filled the hallway to scented incense that filled the air, I ignored it all and focused on the Grail.
At the end of this hallway meant to show off a king's treasure lies another set of doors.
Pushing it open, I was greeted by the sight of a large room with a single throne at the end—
The Grail!
The Grail sat atop the Throne like it was a king. My goal was right in front of me.
Before I could blitz forward and capture the Grail, I then noticed the two other figures that stood around my goal.
One was a figure bearing a young face without any crease. He possessed huge, rolling eyes and glistening cheeks. Wearing odd garments of a luxurious robe, I figured this must be Caster with how he held a book with a screaming face on the cover.
The other was a young boy with a short stature and a cap of white hair. He didn't wear anything nearly as fancy as Caster.
"So you're the one who killed Fafnir…" The boy studied me, turning to the other one, "Well, Gilles, it's been fun. The Demon God was correct."
The boy's tone was the same one might use when saying goodbye to a friend they haven't seen in a long time.
With the Grail so close, I opted to ignore the other two Servants and immediately went for the golden cup—
*BAM*
My body slammed against an invisible barrier surrounding the Grail, sending out ringing noises like I had just hit a bell. Empowered by the magical energy of that Grail, the barrier didn't immediately fall when I crashed into it.
"You're right Prelati. Let's detonate the Grail—"
That halted all my momentum as Prelati winked in my direction.
"—Let's go out with a bang!"
My eyes widened.
Without thinking twice, I took over Quetzalcoatl's Divine Authority of the wind and sent forth a dozen wind blades. The blades themselves manifested inside the Grail's barrier and launched their sharp edge at the Servants present.
Those Servants stood no chance. The blades cut right through them with the same ease a knife parts water, turning the two into stacked slices of varying thickness that erupted into particles of gold.
Right before he disappeared, Prelati taunted me once more, "Hope you like our gift, Goddess..."
The Grail glowed with a brilliant light so bright it outshone the sun. It coated everything in its radiance, enough that I could scantly see anything else across all spectrums of light. It radiated all manners of radiation from Alpha all the way to Gamma. Its light was so intense nothing else could be focused on.
Oh god… I'm too late—!
Then, I raised my arms in front of me as a wall of magical energy rushed forth from the Holy Grail across all directions, enveloping me in its boundless lukewarmth...
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AN: Betcha guys didn't see that coming, didja? If Gilles can't win, then he'll detonate Grail to try and destroy Kuku.
The butterflies have already started to fly and all that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the only FGO fic that has ever destroyed a Grail.
Anyway, this will be the final part for Orleans. And with that done, I'll need to work on Septem and such. Depending on how long Septem is, I may just bundle it up with Okeanos similar to how I bundled Fuyuki and Orleans together.